Bypass Club Car Computer

On most Club Car 48 Volt Powerdrive systems, our Schauer 48 Volt 15 Amp With Club Car Powerdrive connector will work just like the original Club Car Charger. Some of the carts made after 2005 may fail to let the Schauer charger go into charging mode. This is caused by the onboard computer not recognizing the after market charger and turning on to allow charging. In this case, you may need to bypass the onboard computer to be able to use an aftermarket charger.

The computer on the Club Car carts is only used by the original charger. It could actually be considered to be a part of the original charger. The original charger consists of a simple transformer and rectifier assembly with no controls for charging inside this external box. The Club Car computer controls the original charger. It actually turns the original charger on and off and also controls the rate of charge. In other words the original chargers may be thought of as two parts. One part is the external Powerdrive charger and the other part is the onboard cart computer.

When you use an aftermarket charger such as our Schauer 48 Volt 15 amp charger, both of the parts described above are inside the Schauer charger so there is no need for the onboard computer, in fact, it is really just "in the way" and may prevent the aftermarket charger from working properly. The fix for this is actually pretty easy and involves only adding one wire on the cart.

How to Bypass the Club Car Onboard Computer.

On the back of the cart's charger connection there are three wires, a large red wire, large black wire and a small gray wire. You will need to run one wire of at least 14 AWG. This wire will connect at one end to the large black wire at the back of the charger connector on the cart and the other end will connect to the negative battery terminal of the battery on the "Driver's side" of the cart. This will be the negative terminal that has the connection for power from the battery pack.

This is a picture of the wire I added on my 2007 Club Car Cart to bypass the onboard computer. The wire with the clear insulation was the wire I added. On mine, I installed a switch in that wire so the original charger could still be used with that switch off (putting the onboard computer back in service) or the Schauer charger used with the switch in the on position (bypassing the onboard computer. You will not necessarily need to add the switch unless you want to also be able to use both chargers.